Self citation is reaching new height and becoming abusive in some cases. The only way to reduce it to beneficial method, I suggest that we stop counting self citation as scholarly activity or professional service.
Saif - a gooi question. I understand the concept - but I think that it is here to stay. For some researchers i.e. those who are leaders in niche disciplines, they often have no alternative but to cite at least some of their work. I, quite often self-cite (although not as much as I used to). My discipline is not niche - but I have a significant body of work published the area - so I can't really ignore the fact that it is there - especially if many others are citing my work as well.
I do agree, but at the review stage, that if it looks like an author is 'over-inflating' their work (usually quite easy to spot) then it should be addressed at that stage. Another counter is the fact that several citation databases now often state two h-index values for individual researchers - a total citation rate and an adjusted rate that excludes self-citation.
Saif - a gooi question. I understand the concept - but I think that it is here to stay. For some researchers i.e. those who are leaders in niche disciplines, they often have no alternative but to cite at least some of their work. I, quite often self-cite (although not as much as I used to). My discipline is not niche - but I have a significant body of work published the area - so I can't really ignore the fact that it is there - especially if many others are citing my work as well.
I do agree, but at the review stage, that if it looks like an author is 'over-inflating' their work (usually quite easy to spot) then it should be addressed at that stage. Another counter is the fact that several citation databases now often state two h-index values for individual researchers - a total citation rate and an adjusted rate that excludes self-citation.
Dear Dean,
It is better to be confirmed by the others in our articles, not by ourselves!
I am the Editor-in-Chief of two Journals and I do instructed to check for any excessive self citation. We will not allow any abuse of this legit practice. I call on all reviewers to do the sam and demand the deletion of such unnecessary self citations.
Oops ... here it is again....
I am the Editor-in-Chief of two Journals and I do instruct all reviewers to check for any excessive self citation. We will not allow any abuse of this legit practice. I call on all reviewers to do the same and demand the deletion of such unnecessary self citations prior to article acceptance ...
This is an important question for authors, peer-reviewers and editors of scientific/medical journals. We observed from a preliminary study that self-citation is less likely to be found in articles published in journals with high impact factors and more likely to be found in journals with low impacts and some open-access journals. However, this observation cannot be generalized, for example in editorials and systematic review papers, authors who are expert in a particular area and are willing to bring their recent discovers together against what has been published in the literature might need to cite work completed in their labs, including their own work. Also, I noted from several studies, that I have published, that authors of top-cited article are usually less likely to do excessive self-citations. Their high citation counts are usually made by other researchers interested in their work/findings. Excessive self-citation is an unprofessional behavior particularly when the right citations were denied. Such behavior particularly if noted to take a pattern in their other work could be considered a bias in the researcher behavior, a lack of knowledge about other researchers' work and the literature, a lack of good judgement, or an unprofessional attitude. Whatever is the cause editors and reviewers should be aware of the importance of references and citations made as they evaluate a manuscript and construct a peer-review report.
Certainly a very interesting question and nice answers.
Whether self-citation should be counted depends on each case individually. Where you will count it and for what reason.
Sometimes the researcher achieves his studies as a series.Thus,the former paper may be as a reference for the later.
Saif al Zahir -
Generally, to assure an accurate practice, self-citations should be used to support the arguments, not to demonstrate your research. Moreover, self-cites may used to compare recent findings of the research with previous results when studying the same theme. The important point here is to avoid turning self-citations into self-promotion.
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